Jade Emperor | Chinese Mythology

Happy New Year no I'm not late you're all early this is the Lunar New Year also known as Chinese New Year this is the year of the rat now I could tell you all about the Chinese zodiac and why it's the year of the rat but I'm gonna save that for a later video instead we're gonna talk about someone who appears a lot in Chinese mythology but he's not really talked about much here on the mythology community on YouTube that person is the Jade Emperor the Jade Emperor is a top dog of Chinese religion now before we continue I should probably tell you a little bit about the Chinese religion Chinese religion isn't the same kind of religion that we have here in the West in China religion and philosophy are often intertwined and they coexist pretty easily you probably know that Buddhism is the biggest religion in China but what you might not know is that Buddhism is a native to China it comes from India so what was in China before Buddhism well it has enough official name but it's more commonly known as the Chinese folk religion it's a collection of beliefs held by Chinese across the ancient country generally these religions all believed in multiple gods and had some of them of ancestral worship that's a common theme throughout all of Chinese religion that's all I'm gonna say about China's religion because China is just so massive in every single way and it's so overwhelming that I can't do the religion justice by summarizing it in a paragraph Plus this video isn't about the Chinese religion it's about the Jade Emperor now let's talk about him the Jade Emperor rules over heaven and every other God in the Chinese pantheon but it wasn't always on top so the Jade Emperor started as an assistant of all things during his intern days he was known as you hyung Xiang Dee and I'm sorry if I pronounced that wrong and he served the previous ruler / creator of not only heaven but everything you want Shi T on xone please note this is only one creator deity there are many creation stories all across China eventually you hung Shang Dee worked his way up the ladder and he became the new leader of everything in existence the Jade he rules over heaven mostly but he also has some dominion over earth it's just limited because of how far earth is from heaven nevertheless he still rules them both and he sends Gods down to check on humans every once in a while this is what the Chinese New Year is all about a God coming down to check on them to people the Jade Emperor sends God zauj on to inspect every mortals home and their piety if the people on their home passed inspection then the Jade Emperor will reward them accordingly if they fail inspection then they are going to be punished what is the judging criteria for this you may ask well incense is lit and food is left out for the Jade Emperor's so when Zhao Zhao arrives he can check off everything and that the house is doing their duty to the Emperor wait a minute he rewards people for being good punishes them if they're bad and you leave food out for him why does this sound so familiar Jade Emperor is in charge of everything having earth the other gods everything being in charge of everything is a big job and that's why he has a lot of advisers to help him manage everything the Jade Emperor has many advisers just like how the earthly Emperor had many advisers there are actually a few parallels between China's Emperor and a Jade Emperor the Jade Emperor was something that the earthly Emperor's would aspire to be like they wanted to be just like him the Jade Emperor was also the one in charge of the ruling dynasty in China he would issue the Mandate of Heaven the Mandate of Heaven was a belief that originated during the job area'd the belief is that the Jade Emperor decides whether or not a ruling dynasty has the right to rule the Jade Emperor can take away the right from any dynasty and they will fall shortly before being replaced by a new dynasty the Mandate of Heaven has a big influence on China and it even inspired this phrase from the tale of the Three Kingdoms the Empire long divided must unite long United must divide thus it has ever been it's a cyclical pattern which summarizes all of Chinese history it's the religious explanation for China constantly uniting and dividing and again the Jade Emperor's life isn't all business and bureaucratic advisors though so don't feel bad for him he is a wife who get this is named the Jade Empress they also have a lot of children way too many to list but I'll give you one of the more notable ones the Jade Emperor had a daughter named Xenu and she was in charge of weaving colorful clouds into the sky so you know all those nice-looking sunset photos yeah that's her art and she's been doing free commissions for humanity for centuries there's a story about her too one day jean.you decided to go down to earth and bathe in a river while she was bathing a cow herder named Neil Lang stumbled upon her and instantly became attracted to her he saw she left some robes on a bush nearby so he stole them and took them back to his home when she got out of the river she saw her heavenly robes are gone which meant she couldn't return home Neil Lane came back to the river and took it as you knew back to his home some time passes and then the Jade Emperor is naturally wondering where his daughter is he looks down to earth and sees her living with this man who essentially kidnapped her naturally he's furious but he doesn't intervene because they got married I guess he doesn't want to ruin his daughter's forced marriage no personally I think it'd be okay to intervene because this is a case of kidnapping and Stockholm Syndrome but the ancient world is a man's world anyway Xenu got homesick and one day she's snooping around her husband's room she finds a box and opens it to reveal her old heavenly ropes she puts them on and returns to heaven to reunite with her family the Jade amber then creates a large river between heaven and earth so his daughter can never return to her kidnapper she's saddened by this and then bakes her father to let her return classic case of Stockholm Syndrome the Jade Upper eventually agrees to let them meet on a bridge over the river once a year this is the origin for the Chinese equivalent to Valentine's Day it's a day when young lovers celebrate being with each other there are the stories that involves a Jade Emperor he is the one who hosted the zodiac race and according to another story he's the one who sculpted humans from clay but he left us out to dry too long and that's why we some of us have deformities and sickness he even shows up in Journey to the West a few times there was also one story which states he started as a human who became a god and this isn't too crazy because there are other gods in Chinese mythology who started as humans take Kuan Yew for example he started as an extraordinary soldier who was elevated to a god upon his death in my opinion it's not too crazy to think this happened with the Jade Emperor - plus it makes for one crazy underdog story starting as a mortal human who worked his way up the divine hierarchy to become supreme ruler of everything one more thing about the Emperor remember how he said he got the job from the former ruler of heaven well the Zhi number will eventually give up his throne to another God - and he's already chosen who will be he's known only as the master of the dawn of the Jade of the Golden Door quite a mouthful I know we don't know when this will happen but it'll happen eventually it's kind of like Ragnarok or the Book of Revelations we know it's supposed to happen in the future we just don't know when in the future so yeah that's the Jade um / China's supreme deity fun fact his birthday is actually nine days after Chinese New Year you might be wondering mythology guy why didn't you just post this on his birthday then well for one I wanted to showcase something about China on Chinese New Year's so why not talking about their top dog deity plus I already have a video planned for it February and it's one I've wanted to do since the start of this channel so yeah stay tuned for that video next month thank you for watching leave a like if you enjoyed it subscribe if you want to see more and have a good one

Channel: Mythology Guy

Views: 4,045

Rating: 4.7567568 out of 5

Keywords: Mythology, Gods, Smite, Jade Emperor, China, Chinese Mythology, Chinese Folklore, Niu Lang, Zhi Nu, Chinese Valentine's Day, Lunar New Year

Id: WONom-_sRb0

Length: 7min 53sec (473 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 27 2020